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Racism III: A Night on the Town, a Day in Court
Donyale Luna, the first black supermodel, left the US for London in December, 1966 largely because
Negroes were less discriminated against there. But in November 1968 racism raised its ugly head in the
posh Cavendish Hotel.
(http://donyaleluna.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/donyale1.jpg)
Donyale with Ian Quarrier (back), Mia Farrow, Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate at the Paris premiere of
"Rosemary's Baby." Photo from Sharon Tate blog
In a row that received sensational international media coverage, Donyale, Mia Farrow and three male
companions were asked to leave the hotel restaurant at 4 am, ostensibly because the men werent
wearing ties. When they pointed out that men at the other tables were tieless, management called the
police. A fracas ensued and Donyales date, Canadian photographer Iain Quarrier, was arrested and
charged with assaulting a bobby.
A few days later, in a courtroom scene in which Mia and Donyale stole the show, Quarrier was found
guilty and fined $24.
This post examines how the media handled the event.
AP/UPI VERSIONS
In those days, most newspapers rewrote the releases coming from the two major wire services: AP (The
Associated Press) and UPI (United Press International). The way that the two handled the story shows
the dominant white culture of the time schizophrenically caught in the middle of an attitude shift
FEB JAN NOV OCT OCT SEP SEP AUG AUG JUL
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1 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
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La Luna and Ian Quarrier arrive at Bow St. court
toward Negroes.
Heres the AP version, apparently in its entirety, as these words were printed verbatim in every
newspaper I read with the AP credit (the Tucson Daily Sun, the Yuma Globe, the Elyria (OH) Chronicle
and the Ironwood (MI) Daily Globe).
LONDON (AP) Actress
Mia Farrow, 23.
and four com-
panions were
thrown out of a
fashionable West
End hotel Sun-
day.
Donyale Luna.
21, a 6-foot-taIl
American Negro
fashion model
said the
Cavendish Hotel
re-
fused to tell us
why we were
being thrown
out.
The management said it was
because the group created a dis-
turbance at their predawn
breakfast in the hotels restau-
rant.
Canadian-born actor Ian
Quarrier was charged with ob-
structing police who had been
called to escort them out.
Besides Miss Farrow, the for-
mer wife of Frank Sinatra, the
group included Steve Brant, an
American magazine writer, and
film director Donald Cammell.
Reading this, how do you feel about Luna et al? Obnoxious, spoiled celebrities, drinking and partying
too hard, disturbing the peace? Read on.
NEWSPAPER VERSIONS
In Fresno (CA), the Bee-Republican included something that APoops! left out: Donyales second
sentence. Management didnt give them a reason for the heave-ho, but It was obvious (sic) because I
was colored.
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(http://donyaleluna.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/00000006.jpg)
Leaving the court with Quarrier. Pity we can't see the red skirt and blue suede boots in color!
As we look at more newspapers across the country, our story continues to unfold: the more balanced
UPI account says Mia also made a statement, in support of Donyale.
However, only the Des Moines Register ran Mias statement in full: she called the incident a cruel act of
intolerance. We must fight prejudice and intolerance whenever possible. We are fighting the battle for a better
world. We have inherited a mess. We cannot be passive while the future still holds promise.
How much promise did the future hold in Tucson or Yuma AZ, Elyria OH or Ironwood MI? The AP,
like many of its mainstream media clients, chose not to ruffle any white feathers with distasteful and
unsettling talk of racial discrimination. You didnt have the information to even suspect the hotel of
provoking the incident by publicly humiliating Donyale about her skin color. Chances are you didnt
even want to: she was another American Negro (one of them) acting up again.
Donyale was even skewered in her home town. The Detroit Free Press opened by recounting a previous
run-in our girl had with a Detroit hotel. There was the mandatory description of Donyales couture:
She wore a short yellow Mongolian lamb coat over black velvet trousers, a red skirt and hip-length
blue suede boots.
The
story
did
mention Farrows statement charging the hotel with racial discrimination (without the circumstances),
followed by the hotels counterclaim that the five were evicted for disturbing other customers.
Donyale has not commented upon Mias discrimination charge, it reported, but she did say once: I
never think of color. I went to a mixed high school. No one ever hurt me by prejudice.
UPI STORIES
Readers of newspapers citing the UPI version got more balanced accounts.
The Long Beach Independent/Press-Telegram, for example, concluded: Cause of the disturbance was not
clear. Miss Farrow accused the hotel management of an immoral and cruel act of intolerance. Miss Luna said it
was pretty obvious they were thrown out because I am colored.
The hotel said they were rowdy.
3 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
Brandt said the hotel told them to leave because they were not wearing lies although other men there werent
either. The hotel refused to give another reason and called the police, Brandt said. Thats when the fighting
started.
The Salt Lake City Tribune, bless their Mormon hearts, made Mias accusations the lead. And the
Canandaigua (NY) Daily Messenger ran only a paragraph from UPI, but concluded with Donyales full
statement (attributed to both her and Mia), that the hotel wouldnt give a reason for the ouster but it was
obviously because of her skin color.
Another balanced account, from the Morgantown, West Virginia Dominion-News, citing the London
Daily Mirror as its source, unfortunately described Farrow (who was a top property, having just starred
starred in the years most talked-about film, Rosemarys Baby) only as recently divorced from Frank
Sinatra. But it repeated her accusation that the group was refused service because Donyale was Negro.
It gave the hotel equal time, quoting a spokesman: The Cavendish Hotel does not, never had, and will
never operate any kind of a color bar.they were disturbing other guests by their behavior.
Jet, a Black magazine, zeroed in on the racial issue. Nothing happened when the white members of the party
entered, but when Miss Luna, who was trailing behind, came in, the group was told to get out. Brandt said the
group was told to get out because the men were not wearing ties, even though they pointed out that men at three
other tables were not wearing ties. The hotel refused to give another reason and called the police. Thats when the
fighting started.
Luna said they were thrown out because I am colored. It was a nightmare. The Hotel staff and police were pushing
me around. The Hotel refused to tell us why we were being thrown out.
And finally, we have a first-hand account of the incident. Photoplay magazine journalist Steve Brandt
was in Donyales party. Noting that false versions of the incident abounded, he wrote the following for
the Feb. 1969 issue (lightly edited from where it appears online at a blogsite for slain actress Sharon
Tate): (http:///sensationalsharontate.blogspot.com/search?q=donyale+luna)
PARTICIPANT VERSION
Mia Farrow, myself, Donyale Luna (a beautiful six foot Negro model who soon makes her film debut in Otto
Premingers Skidoo), Lunas beau, producer Iain Quarrier and Donald Cammell (he just directed the new Mick
Jagger film Performance) decided to top off our evening of disco dancing with a late breakfast. Having been there
before, Iain suggested The Cavendish, a hotel that had an all-night restaurant.
We arrived and entered, everyone was seated at the table, and then Donyale (whod been primping in the ladies
room) made her entrance. At this point, one of the staff approached our table and advised us we couldnt be served.
Why not? we queried.
We were told it was because none of the men were wearing ties. At least two of the four occupied tables were
comprised of men not wearing ties. We pointed this out to a grumpy middle-aged manageress who then said, No
reason, I just want you out of here!
It was obvious to all of us that we were being asked to leave because a Negro woman was seated with us. Even a
very self-conscious Miss Luna blurted out, Why, is it because I am colored?
The manageress walked away. Within 10 minutes, four policemen came running in and advised us we had to leave.
4 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
Right or wrong, they added, it was the hotels prerogative to refuse service to whomever they wished.
But we just want to know why, Mia chimed in.
The police admitted that no reason was given.
Well, then, well sit here until we get an explanation. I figured I might as well get in on the issue.
A few seconds later two waiters grabbed Iain and started pulling him out of his seat. Iain fought back and then the
police joined in. Before we knew it, six men were on top of Quarrier, with Mia and Donyale screaming, Leave him
alone! as they tried to help him out. Both slender ladies were pushed clear across the room!
Next we learned Iain was being arrested for obstructing justice. Mia announced, If youre taking him, were
coming too! and we all traipsed down to the police station. After waiting an hour, Quarrier was released.
Both Mia and I stayed on in London, just to give testimony at his hearing.
Despite our protests, Iain was found guilty. Although he was fined only $20 (after all the headlines), the principle
of the incident still bothered all of us. As we left the court, people ran up and said, We believe youwere on your
sidetake it to a higher court. We decided not to; instead, La Luna reported the incident to the Racial
Discrimination Board.
Reading this, one can certainly question Brandts decision to sit here until we get an explanation.
Right or wrong, youre asking for trouble if you dont do what a cop tells you toeven in England. But
considering the groups moral rightness and the enormity of the issue, and possibly a little nudge from
the alcohol, its understandable.
What was Donyale feeling before the fracas erupted? Ill bet part of her wanted more than anything to
just creep away and not spend another minute at the center of the rapidly escalating tension. Another
part felt righteous indignation: At last! Someone gets to see what I live in constant fear of being
subjected to! and finally she must have felt warm all over to be with white friends who stood by her
side in such a humiliating situation.
No wonder she didnt like to discuss her heritage!
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Would you kick this woman out of...your hotel? Donyale graced this Minolata camera ad
IN COURT
Five days later Quarrier and Mia appeared in Bow Street Court, with Luna, Brandt and Cammell there
to support them. Quarrier faced a reduced charge of obstructing an officer and Mia of saying the F
word. Reportage of the hearing reached a new low.
On the stand Mia repeated the expletive, to the consternation of The El Paso Herald Posts man on the
London beat. Arnold Latchams entire story was about the dastardly obscenity and included this
astonishing paragraph:
As the word was uttered spectators gasped and the monocle fell from the eye of a friend she had come to court with,
long-haired velvet-suited American journalist Steven Brandt. Magistrate Kenneth Harington remained stoic, and
the lawyers in court blushed.
6 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
Anderson (IN) readers received a long account from UPI, but if UPI maintained its earlier standard of
reporting both sides, the defense charges were edited out.
APs man on the scene, Geoffrey Anderson, filed a balanced story that added some missing details: The
case lasted all day long. Mia, feeling poorly, went to the doctor and didnt show up until near the end.
The prosecutions case was that they were drinking, they were dressed in fantastic, way-out clothes
and the men wore no ties. Not a word of disturbing others.
Police said that when they dragged Quarrier out of an elevator and through the hotel lobby, Miss Farrow and
Miss Luna were clawing at them and trying to get them free, and that Miss Luna was screaming,Let him go!
Good for the girls! Donyales testimony basically agreed: According to Miss Luna, Quarrier was brutally
and forcibly dragged from the hotel restaurant.
He was in no physical condition to resist, she said. I started screaming, Let him walk. Hes not an animal.
When Mia finished testifying, she squatted cross-legged on the floor of the crowded courtsomething which
probably has never been done before in an English court of law. (She was temporarily removed and sat
properly when she returned.)
Unfortunately, the only newspaper I could find that carried Andersons account was the Lowell (MA)
Sun.
The Detroit Free Press focused on Donyale and Mias courtroom appearance and behavior.
Perjurors! shouted Detroit model Donyale Luna as she and Mia Farrow were led from the London
courtroom.Its a lie! shouted Mia.
Then Donyales clothes: Donyale wore a black satin catsuit with high-heel suede boots. There was a turquoise
stone set in the center of her forehead Indian-style, and she wore four large rings on her fingers.
It had been a bad day for Donyale, the story continued. First, she was handed a writ as she stepped from a
maroon Rolls-Royce outside the court. It was from a London hotel involving what Donyale called a personal
matter. Then, while she lighted a cigaret while waiting in the wrong court for the case to begin, she was rebuked
by an usher for smoking in court.
Mias antics came next: Her first words, on entering the court late, were: Can I take my clothes off?
7 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
(http://donyaleluna.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/babyprem.jpg)
Another shot from "Rosemary's Baby" premiere, showing off Mia's garb. That's Peter Sellers on the right
What is bad? she asked (on the stand) of an obscene language report. I dont think I said anything cruel. Oh, yes
I did. I said Heil Hitler because there were a lot of Germans attacking us.
She then used a four-letter word and asked: Would you call that bad? Its the nicest thing you can say to anyone.
After her testimony, Mia tried to enter the prisoners dock with Quarrier, but was removed by police. She sat cross-
legged on the floor of the crowded court for a while, then crossed the room and sat on the lap of the fourth
co-defendant, Donald Cammell, an American movie director.
End of story. No mention of racism from start to finish.
The Detroit News ran only a paragraph with a photo. They devoted one sentence to the event: The group
was tossed out of the eatery after the incident in which Miss Farrow used a four-letter word which she repeated
yesterday in coming to Quarriers defense in court.
Elsewhere, The Charleston Daily Mail focused on the prosecution statements:
I had the impression they (Mia and Donyale) had both been drinking heavily, the Inspector testified. They were
very confused and swore.
The party was dressed in fantastic, way-out clothes, drinking, making a lot of noise, the men wore no ties.
Further down the page, Apparently Mia Farrow swore at and clawed one of the cops. Farrow said a four-letter
word in court and put on a show.
You could read all of these stories and never have a clue that the party got the heave-ho because of
Donyales skin color.
With hindsight, we can question the ladies decision to put on a show rather than stress the
discrimination. But they got what they wanted: publicity, in an era when so many newspapers (and
even the wire services) routinely edited out any references to racism. If you think Donyale was in denial
of her heritage or chose to remain above the fray, this might be grist for your mill. But read on.
Piecing all these stories together to learn what really happened is like watching the movie Rashomon.
(Could we expect a clear understanding if Donyale was involved?) Racism was so prevalent at the time
8 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
that, although it was at the core of the fracas, some publications dont even mention it.
Was the party indeed drunk and disorderly? Did the hotels charge that they were disturbing the other
customers have merit?
Several tell-tale clues suggest not.
First, the hotel couldnt get its story straight. It claimed the party was rowdy only after saying the men
werent wearing ties (a common pretext then for denying admission to people of color).
Second, in Steve Brandts account the manageress says, No reason, I just want you out of here. This
echoes the waitress in the restaurant I took Donyale to and my apartment manager: We dont want
them in here. Its an accurate reflection of how many white people felt about Negroes.
Third is the amount of Quarriers fine: $24? Plus $15 court costs for a case that lasted all day? Judge
Harington couldnt really dismiss the charge if Quarrier actually laid a hand on the bobby, even in
defense, but he clearly was not going for the hotels story.
And finally: Donyale Luna, so-called traitor to her race, she who chose to live her life above the fray,
filed a charge with the Racial Discrimination Board.
Go Donyale!
Sources:
Producer Fined after London Bobby Struck, Anderson (IN) Herald, 11/17/68
Hotel Ousts Actress, Canandaigua (NY) Daily Messenger, 11/11/68
Charleston Daily Mail, 11/15/68
Des Moines Register, 11/11/68
Mias Pal, Hotel Here Also Clashed, Detroit Free Press, 11/12/68
Irked by the Verdict, Mia, Donyale Disrupt Court, Detroit Free Press, 11/29/68
Mia Stars in Court, Detroit News, 11/16/68
Arnold Latcham, Mia Farrow Startles London Court with Obscene Word, El Paso Herald Post,
11/20/68
untitled, Elyria (OH) Chronicle-Telegram, 11/11/68
untitled, Fresno Bee Republican, 11/12/68
untitled, Ironwood (MI) Daily Globe, 11/11/68
Bias Charged Against Hotel That Threw Out Mia, Luna, Jet, 11/28/68
Hotel Ousts Mia Farrow and Friends, Long Beach Independent/Press-Telegram, 11/11/68
Geoffrey Anderson, Mia Farrow Has Real-Life Role in London Brawl, Lowell (MA) Sun, 11/15/68
Morgantown (WV) Dominion News, 11/12/68
Steve Brandt, 4:00 am Breakfast Incident, Photoplay, Feb. 1969
Fray in Hotel Prompts Racist Charges by Mia, Salt Lake City Tribune, 11/12/68
Sharon Tate blog (http:///sensationalsharontate.blogspot.com/search?q=donyale+luna)
Companions Tossed Out, Tucson Daily Citizen, 11/11/68
Mia and Friends Ejected from Hotel Room, Yuma Sun, 11/11/68
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This wonderful photo by Michael Alexander accompanied the New York Times article. The caption
read: Luna, 6-foot-2-inch model, will act Groucho Marx's mistress in "Skidoo." Will her job open up
movie roles for Negro women? "I couldn't care less."
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COMMENTS 6 Comments
CATEGORIES Uncategorized
Race Part II Four Fateful Words: Donyale Puts her Foot in
her Mouth
Sorry for the long delay, folks; Ive been traveling. Heres the next installation about Luna and race.
Ive also added photos to the last post.
Enjoy! Don
_________________________________
If it brings about more jobs for Mexicans, Chinese, Indians, Negroes, groovy. It could be good, it could be bad. I
couldnt care less.
Donyale Luna, New York Times, May 19,1968
If youve ever googled Donyale Luna, the first black supermodel, youve read those words. She uttered
them in response to interviewer Judith Stone when Stone asked her if she thought that being cast in Otto
Premingers Skidoo would open up more movie roles for Negro women.
Donyales answer kindles passions in Blacks to this day. A future post will run some of the fiery
10 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
(http://donyaleluna.files.wordpress.com/2011/01
/dsc00736.jpg)
Salvador Dali claimed Luna was the reincarnation of Nefertiti
comments on Luna blogs more than 40 years later.
She initially responded to Stones question with an icy, I dont think about that. How long had she
been telling the media she was of mixed heritage? Wasnt Stone listening to her?
Then Donyales fianc, German actor Georg Willing, piped up, Shes white, didnt you know? Ive
disliked Willing ever since I read that remark: what a sarcastic clod! And I can see Im doing the same
thing as people who castigate Luna for her reply to Stone. Willing may have been merely showing
support and it came out wrong.
But then, writes Stone, Luna reconsidered for a moment. If it brings about more jobs for Mexicans,
Chinese, Indians, Negroes, groovy. It could be good, it could be bad. I couldnt care less.
Read the first sentence. Donyale, living the role of Donyale Luna, probably, as she said, didnt think
about that. Now she thought about it and it sounded good. Had she stopped there, she had said the
right thing and also made her point that her blood was not pure Negro but mixed.
But would her landing the role actually bring down the barriers? Offhand, she didnt know: It could be
good, it could be bad.
Then out tumbled the Four Fateful Words: I couldnt care less.
Why on earth did she add them? The more I ponder it, the more I think they were an unfortunate
rhetorical fillip, words to fit the rhythm of a conclusion, spoken in haste by an uncertain woman all of 21
or 22 years old, beating a hasty retreat from a subject that could trigger a lot of pain and confusion inside
her back into the role of diva.
This was before Donyale and Salvador Dali had become buddies, when she would take a page from his
book of tricks and make up an outlandish response for the press, not a lie so much as an imaginative
creation to further her public image. At this point she didnt have the tools to handle a savvy journalist
like Stone.
11 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
Stones portrait of Donyale is actually the most sympathetic and perceptive Ive read. An unkind editor
ignored Lunas first two sentences and wrote the photo caption: Will her job open up movie roles for
Negro women? I couldnt care less. Later, Wikipedias account also accentuated the Four Fateful
Words and suggested that Donyale renounced her race. A hefty percentage of Net profiles copied
Wikipedia.
But it simply wasnt true that Donyale couldnt care less.
Ex-beau Sanders Bryant tells of a time Donyale and he visited a museum of slavery artifacts in Dresden,
Canada one day when she still lived in Detroit. When Donyale saw those artifacts and the slave
conditions, recalls Bryant, she broke down in tears.
Remember, this was Donyale Luna, who was going to be happy only, who had banished tears from
her life.
Early articles about Luna portrayed her as the new top Negro model. She never denied that, says
Bryant. But she had that other side.To Donyale, denying any part of that was like denying herself.
Donyales remarks to Detroit Free Press reporter Colleen OBrien in 1966 show careful wording about her
ethnicity: Most of my publicity has been because Im dark-skinned. But I think the reaction would have
been the same if I were white because of my features. Note two things here:
1. She said she wasnt white.
2. She described herself as dark-skinned as opposed to Negro or even colored. (And she wasnt
even that dark-skinned.)
When asked whether she thought her success was due to her color, she also told OBrien, I never think
of myself as a brown-skinned girl.
While Donyale was tuned into the racial struggle, Bryant says, she felt that she should be above the
fray. She was a seeker. She adorned her third eye with bindis. She took psychedelics. She saw the Big
Picture, where racism was resolved. There she dweltby herself, if necessary, until the struggle and
fighting was over.
Not a position that gains you points in history, but understandable for an artist who chose to live her life
at the mythic level. Three years later, sounding weary of the subject, she told Free Press reporter George
Kirvay, I honestly dont know what I am. Ive been described as being both a white person and a
Negro. Whatever people want to thinkthey can.
Im not exonerating Donyale from the charge that she denied her heritage. At age 15 she told Sanders
Bryant she was Hawaiian. At age 17 or 18 she told me she was Polynesian. She was honing a story that
eventually included a Mexican father and a veritable but unverifiable smorgasbord of colorful ancestors.
But as was usually the case with Donyales fabrications, this one had some truth mixed in: her mother
was half Irish and that entire side of her family, according to Sanders Bryant, could have been more
Hawaiian than she was.
Donyale was a scared little girl playing diva, the only role in life large enough for her to make her
qualities virtues, not flaws. As such, she wasnt tapped into the world of ordinary reality so much as a
deeper, more powerful truth. She was descended from Nefertiti, from goddesses and mermaids. Her
ancestry was part of her mythic life.
12 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
Many if not most of us, black and white alike, while being primarily of one ethnicity, have mixed
heritage. Negroes were much more second-class citizens 45 years ago than now, and it was common for
those who could pass for white or mixed to do so.
The mythic part of Donyale loved her skin. She was proud of it. The little girl part felt ashamed of it and
afraid in the world. She passed; or at least she tried to. What a heady game to play when youre front
and center on the world stage!
From that location, every foible, every shortcoming becomes magnified in peoples minds. Donyale was
no trailblazer, no Muhammad Ali. Neither are most of us, but we live with our other pedestrian fellows
quietly and no one thinks badly of us.
Sometimes the times turn some of us into trailblazers. Donyale lived in one of those times, an
extraordinary time. If she failed to pick up the machete, how does that make her worthy of anyones
derision? It merely shows that in this arena she was ordinary. Rather than anger or blame, we might
choose to feel compassion for her. What would you or I have done for our primary race in her shoes
(when she wore them)?
How many of us can handle the limelight? Especially a limelight so dazzling, so sudden, so early in life,
with no one to guide us through its blinding brilliance? When I first learned of Donyales rise to glory in
1966, after I had moved to California., I thought: Of all the people I knew in Detroit, Donyale is the last
one I would have wished fame upon. (Incredibly, when I was seeing her, I didnt even know she was
seeking it.)
Be careful of what you wish for, the adage goes, lest your wish comes true. Donyale Lunas wish came
true and she paid the price: this subject of race that so pained and tormented her, this issue that she fled
halfway across the globe to escape, was thrust in her face wherever she went.
Sources:
Sanders Bryant, conversation, Nov. 2009
George Kirvay, Detroit Free Press, 1969
Colleen OBrien, Detroit Free Press, 1966
Judith Stone, Luna, Who Dreamed She was Snow White, New York Times, 5/19/68
wikipedia, Donyale Luna (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donyale_luna)
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CATEGORIES African American, biography, donyale luna, fashion, racism, Uncategorized
Donyale and race, part I: an outcast in her white
13 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
The many shades of Donyale Luna: Here she's lily-white on her groundbreaking Harper's Bazaar
cover
(http://donyaleluna.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/4bdoqko.jpg)
Here she's dark chocolate with Brian Jones
boyfriends world
OK, weve looked at the volatile relationship between her parents as one factor in Peggy Ann Freemans
teen decision to mold herself into Donyale Luna. Today well look at the other: racism.
Full disclosure first: Im a honky. My mind and capacity for empathy allow me a degree of
understanding, but I was on the other side of the Black experience of the 1950s and 60s.
That saidracism is a huge topic in Donyales life and were opening a potential Pandoras Box here.
This inaugural post is up close and personal: four stories from my time with her in 1964. Remember,
although Donyale and I informally went together for four or five months, I learned only last year that
she was colored.
14 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
Blue-eyed and pale-skinned on the cover of Queen
First story: I took Donyale to dinner at The Famous Italian Cafe, where I worked part-time delivering
pizzas. The next night when I showed up for work, feeling proud, I asked one of the waitresses what she
thought of Donyale.
We dont like them in here, she sniffed.
I was taken aback. Shes not Negro, Kay. Shes Polynesian.
We still dont like them in here, Kay repeated.
Second story: I lived in a seedy apartment building off-campus with a lot of sad tales. It was a tough
neighborhood and Jimmy, the manager, locked the door each night about midnight. One night after
Donyale and I left Vernes Bar, I brought her over to my place. I knocked until Jimmy let us in.
The next morning Jimmy told me, We dont allow them in the building. Yep, same word. Same
inflection.
Same reaction from me: Jimmy, shes not Negro. Shes Polynesian.
So she says. We still dont let them in here.
A few mornings later, Jimmy told me, That colored girl came over to see you again last night. I didnt
let her in.
Of course Donyale never mentioned it. What, did she want me to suspect she was Negro? And I didnt
mention it to her: I felt embarrassed, bad that I missed her, but basically I was clueless.
Third story: Donyale never said no when I suggested going anywhere or doing anything. The only time
15 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
/000000154.jpg)
A pale bindi and white canine accessory darken Donyale's skin
she even hesitated was when I invited her to an overnight visit to Albion College (all-white, I realized
only when I re-examined this last year), where I had attended the year before. Where will I sleep? she
asked me. I figured she was afraid I was trying to trick her into bed. Ill call my friend Ann. Somebody
in the dorm is always away, and you can stay in their bed.
Ann said sure, no problem. There never was.
We arrived later than planned, just before the girls 9pm curfew. Ann was less overjoyed to see us than I
expected: I figured because we were late. She said she thought she could find a bed. (What, she didnt
have one lined up?) I couldnt stay to make sure; boys had to be off the premises at 9pm. I told Donyale
to call me at the frat house if there was any problem.
The next morning I asked her how it went.
OK, I guess, she said. Ann brought me a blanket and pillow and I slept in the lobby. Again, clueless,
I heard her OK and figured the dorm was uncharacteristically full.
We were going to stay the day. But a few minutes later Donyale said, Lets go home now. My plan
hadnt been very well-conceived; I had nothing specific in mind for the day anyway.
Lets have breakfast first. We ate and drove home.
Only last year did I put myself in Donyales shoes (she did wear them, mostly) and feel the heart-
stabbing grief that must have gnawed at her heartthe rage at being turned away from the door of the
guy she was sweet on because someone thought she wasnt fit to enter; the shame of having to sleep in
the lobby because no white girl would share a room with her.
I can only guess at the awful patterns created in her mind and heart, the same self-deprecatingeven
self-loathing patterns that governed Negroes everywhere at that time. I can begin to understand the
black man who told me recently that he watched Leave it to Beaver and wanted his mother to look like
Louise Cleaver. I know white supremacy is real, he said, because Ive been a white supremacist,
although Im in black skin.
16 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
And only now do I see the culturebound racism inherent in my response to Kay and Jimmy. True, I
thought Donyale was Polynesian. Nonetheless, today Id jump all over their racism. Back then, although
I knew their attitude was wrong, the idea of challenging it just didnt exist in the white worldin my
clueless world, at least. I had heard about Malcolm X and his murderous Black Muslims out in
California (I didnt even know he was from Detroit). Even while Abbie Hoffman and other prescient
white youth were getting their bones broken by Jim Crow lawmen in the South, I watched a Negro rally
march along Woodward Avenue past the Famous Italian Cafe (along with the rest of the crew, including
Kay) and didnt know what I felt about that: the idea of Negroes marching was a new neuronal implant
to me.
For the era, I was relatively unprejudiced: my parents fought for Negroes in the unions, and I went to a
well-mixed high school. I dwell on myself here to illustrate the pre-civil rights white mindset even the
liberal white mindsetto balance what Ive imagined of the Negro mindset.
Now for the final story.
Jimmys three little words: So she says, got a little toehold in the back of my mind: was Donyale a
Negro?
One day we were sitting on a bed in a friends house. Donyale was knitting, smiling her perpetual
smile. I felt I had a right to know. Are you Negro?
The needles clacked; behind the smile was an almost imperceptible tightening. It was the only time I
ever felt tension between us. Im Polynesian, she said.
It doesnt matter to me if you are Negro, I said. Was that true? Yes: what prejudice I held was all
unconscious. It would make her slightly less exotic to me, but shed still be the most exotic woman Id
ever met.
Im Polynesian, she repeated.
About a month after I stopped seeing her, I saw her with three Negro men at the Little Theatre at Wayne
State.
What got into me? I greeted her and said, You said youre not Negro, but I see you hanging out with
Negroes. Are you sure?
Graceful as always, she replied: I seem to get along with them. I like them and they like me.
Last year her sister told me Donyale was heartbroken over a white boyfriend who accused her of being
black. She cried and cried, she said.
I cried too45 years too late.
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Donyale looking her most beautiful in this still from Skidoo
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Skidoo: Donyale Lunas Only Hollywood Film
Great news! Were taking time out from the chronicle of Donyale Lunas childhood for an exciting event!
Lunas only Hollywood movie, Otto Premingers Skidoowhich Paramount Studios yanked and stuffed
in its vaults after it flopped in 1968will soon be available through Olive Films (olivefilms.com
(http://www.olivefilms.com), click on Coming Soon on the far left). (Its not there yet, but they
promised soon.)
Skidooas befits Donyaleis different. Maybe even weird. Its one of the strangest films ever made by
a major Hollywood studio and director: as one reviewer put it, Theres no movie remotely like it. And
its making is filled with fascinating side stories.
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The bride looks pure and innocent, right down to the camera sundog on her heart. A moment later
she kisses Cesar Romero (who isn't her groom)
Just about everyone who was anyone in Hollywood appeared in Skidoo: Jackie Gleason is retired
gangster Tony Banks (likely a model for Tony
Soprano). Carol Channing (who hid her own racial mixture until 2002 and was never criticized for it) is
his wife, Flo. Groucho Marx is his boss, God. Donyale Luna is Gods sex-crazed mistress. (Now theres
a screen credit! Groucho was 77 at the time; Donyale was 21 or 22, and of a different racial hue. But, as
Preminger said, Call a character God and everything becomes a little unreal.) John Phillip Law,
Arnold Stang, Cesar Romero, Mickey Rooney, Frankie Avalon, Alexandra Hay, George Raft, Burgess
Meredith, Peter Lawford, Slim Pickens, Frank Gorshin, Austin Pendletonsuch awesome star power as
was seldom gathered into one movie before or since. Rudi Gernreich designed Donyales shift, and
Harry Nilsson wrote the music and sang the closing credits.
The film is also distinguished by whos not in it. Faye Dunaway, atop the heap after Bonnie & Clyde, was
originally cast in Donyales role but she refused, even though she was under contact and a resultant
lawsuit by Preminger cost her dearly. Groucho was a last-minute replacement: Donyale might have
wound up the mistress to Frank Sinatra, Rod Steiger, Zero Mostel, Anthony Quinn, Alfred Hitchcock or
Senator Everett Dirksen!
Skidoo was Grouchos last film; for three of the stars Pendleton, Hay and Lunait was their first. Hay
was recruited from the Warner Playhouse, where she was starring in Michael McClures The Beard,
appearing nude and getting arrested nightly. Like Donyale, she died youngof heart failure at 46.
The story of how Donyale got the role is worth telling. Preminger discovered her at a party for
Twiggy, where she invited him to a screening of Andy Warhols Snow Whitewritten and starring Luna.
At the screening, in Premingers office the next day, Warhol was silent until the director offered him a
drink. Warhol asked if he had any amphetamines. Preminger proffered a box of diet pills. He emptied
the pill box, recalled Preminger, ate them all and still didnt say anything. Inside Warhols placid
exterior, things must have been lighting up and shooting around like pinballs cascading in a machine.
Its a tribute to his nervous system that he could gulp gobs of speed down his craw and still sit there,
outwardly as meditative as a monk.
The next day Donyale invited Preminger to lunch to ask if he wanted to finance Snow White. I said I
didnt finance films, recalled Preminger; I directed them.
Oh, you direct too, she said. Soon after, Dunaway bought out and Preminger, enthralled by Luna,
signed her.
Donyale was ecstatic about her role: For the first time I can be someone Ive always wanted to play, a
sexy, seductive type of gangster girl. Now its even better. Gods girl.
Her opening scene, standing beside Groucho at a pool table, accentuates her height. Thereafter she
appears mostly beside 63 Cesar Romero or 65 John Phillip Law and appears less tall than she was.
How was her acting? Both she and Groucho gave the director fits with their opening pool table scene.
Lunas inability to stand still while standing behind Marxs chair drove Preminger to a fury, reported
a film student covering the set for his Ph.D. But the big problem was Grouchos inability, even with a
teleprompter, to get through his lines. This cost Donyale some screen exposure, as Preminger kept
19 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
/dsc007482.jpg)
God and his mistress enjoy a game of bumper pool. How long is Luna's neck?!!
/dsc007571.jpg)
"What's wrong with my body? Don't you like my body?" Twice she spoke these lines, which must
have been liberating for her
deleting lines, reducing the scene down to the barest essentials. It still required 14 takes.
She delivered her remaining lines better than on the Detroit stage, although her laugh sounds forced at
times. She adopted one of her patented made-up accents for the rolejust a slight bend in the way she
normally talked.
Butas befits a modelDonyale did her real acting with her body. Clad in a lime-colored Gernreich
shift, she undulates around Gods yacht like a snake. The reviews focused on her exposed derrierre
cleavage, but the real attention-getter is her sweeping, sinewy bronzed back. Her fingers, long and
spindly as daddy longlegs, are usually in motion and seem to occupy half the screen. Although they
diminish her most spectacular feature, her blue contact lenses are startling.
Heres a synopsis of Skidoo: From his yacht (it actually belonged to John Wayne), God (Groucho), orders
retired mobster Tony (Gleason), living a suburban life with wife Carol Channing, to sneak into prison to
off a squealer (Rooney). While Tonys locked up, Flo and their daughter (Hay) open their house to a
tribe of hippies led by Stash (Law). Behind bars, Tony accidentally ingests some LSD smuggled in by his
20 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
"Her fingers, long and spindly as daddy longlegs, are usually in motion and seem to occupy half the
screen"
cellmate (the Professor, Pendleton) and realizes he cant kill anyone. He and the Professor dump the
rest of the contraband into the prison lunch and pretty soon everyone in the joint is ripped. While the
guards trip, Tony and the Professor escape in a jerry-rigged hot air balloon. They arrive on Gods yacht
at the same time as Flo and the hippies. A new Tony approves his daughters marriage to Stash, while
God and the Professor sail off into the sunset in a cannabis haze.
After Skidoo landed with a huge belly-flopsome theaters yanked it within a week of opening
Paramount quietly stuffed it into the studio vaults, where it has remained until this autumn. Internet
reviewers who call Skidoo the worst movie ever made suggest that Premingers children prevailed on
Paramount to lock it up to save their fathers reputation. According to several IMDb reviewers,
Premingers kids do claim Skidoo is not their fathers best work. But they may be less concerned about
Skidoos quality than its politics. While it pokes fun equally at hippie culture and the Establishment
(represented by the mobsters), it lands squarely in the corner of LSD: once Tony imbibes it, his violent
instincts turn to mush.
In 1968, everyone in Hollywood was looking to capture the hippie mystique, but, except for Dennis
Hopper (Easy Rider), they were clueless. Preminger gave it the old college try: he dropped acid under
Timothy Learys tutelage and even got Leary to star in the trailer. The Professors words of guidance as
Tony comes on to the experience sound like Leary himself could have spoken them.
But the acid imagery is ludicrous (what did Preminger see on his journey? Certainly not screws with
Grouchos head on top!) and the actors, few of whom had any psychedelic experience, mostly played
drunk. One could also argue that Premingers view of acid appears nave in light of later revelations
about CIA hanky-panky under the influence. But he may have been making fun of the hippie peace-
and-love message.
Besides Preminger, Groucho also famously underwent a maiden voyageat the age of 77!with
counterculture clown and Yippee! co-founder Paul Krassner, to prepare for his role. (Read Krassners
account here (http://www.miqel.com/entheogens/groucho-marx-on-lsd.html).)
At least one other cast member was familiar with LSD. On May 19, 1968during the shooting of Skidoo
21 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
Oops! We wouldn't want to leave Frankie Avalon out of the harem
The garb. The back. The behind. Luna by Gernreich
and 11 years to the day before her deathDonyale Luna extolled its virtues in the New York Times.
In September
1967,
according to
Andy Warhol
in POPism, she
castigated her
roommates in
New York for
taking acid. Some
time in between, she
dropped for the first
time. Was it also to
prepare for her role?
Its doubtful she
scored it from
Preminger, who got
his from Leary and
tried it just once. Did she get turned on by the Beatles, with whom she was hanging out at the time? Or
by someone in Rome, from where she flew to California for the film? If anyone reading has a clue as to
who turned Donyale onits another major unanswered question about her life.
Bosley Crowther of the New York Times liked Skidoo, but he was a lone voice in the wilderness: it was
skewered by the critics, who understood acid and hippies even less than Preminger. With some
exceptions, blogger critics have been harsh as well. Many of their points are well-taken: Skidoo is far
from a comic masterpiece and it doesnt always succeed even on its own terms. Had I seen it in 1968, I
would have detested it for its shallowness and misunderstanding of hippie culture.
But having viewed it several times in 2009 and 2010, I like it for its goofiness and for the gentleness
behind its jabs at both hippies and the Establishment. I come away feeling good. Preminger was known
as a German autocrat whose sense of humor was lugubrious when it existed at all. But in Skidoo, with all
its missed opportunities, embarrassing dialog and flat Hey-Look-at-Me sight gags, I think, for just one
film, he tapped into a higher comic vein, one that blends compassion with slapstick and satire: he
flashed us an Olympian smile at humanitys foibles.
I think of Skidoo as a very ambitious film that failed nobly: besides American culture and the Sixties
subculture, Preminger took on all of technology and seemed to be jousting at organized religion. He
overreached and simply fell short, partly because he was too much in the Hollywood box to capture the
social revolution in the streets and partly because his sense of humor was puerile and heavy-handed.
Three things about the movie that I really love: 1. The production number at the end with Carol
Channing singing Skidoo as the hippies invade Gods yacht 2. The entire prison population on LSD.
Shockingly inaccurate, but what a concept! The screenplay wisely intersperses story development so it
doesnt grow tiring. 3. Our girl Donyale Luna, gliding gracefully around Gods yacht in her lime-green
Gernreich shift, seducing every man she sees.
References
Chris Fujiwara, The World and its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger, Farrar, Straus & Giroux,
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Can Stash (John Phillip Law) resist these seductive charms?
2008, pp360-366
Pierre Greenfield, Out of the Past: Skidoo, parallax-view.org (http://parallax-view.org/2009/11
/05/out-of-the-past-skidoo/)
Skidoo reviews, imdb.com (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063612/)
Paul Krassner, I Took LSD with Groucho Marx (http://www.miqel.com/entheogens/groucho-
marx-on-lsd.html)
Judith Stone, Luna, Who Dreamed of Being Snow White, New York Times, 5/19/68.
Andy Warhol & Pat Hackett, POPism: the Warhol 60s, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1980, p237
wikipedia.com, Carol Channing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Channing)
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Four weddings and a funeral
23 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
Donyale Luna: off in another world?
Its a given on Internet lore that Donyale Luna created a fantasy world to escape the terrors of growing
up with a father who worked sporadically and was an abusive brute.
What is the source for this? Is it true, or has Nathaniel Freeman been given a bum rap?
Whatever his nature, he and Donyales mother Peggy had a really wild ride: they were married and
divorced four times!
A powerful chemistry must have bound them together, because as life partners they were like oil and
water. Or better, oil and fire.
Nate came to Detroit from Alabama as part of the great Black migration to the auto factories. Contrary to
reports of his lackadaisical approach to work, he was employed by Ford Motor Co. nonstop for 37 years.
He worked most of those years in the foundry, shoveling metal into hot furnaces. At one point he was
going to quit, says his daughter, Donyales sister Lillian, because he was getting older and the work
was so hard. He went in and talked to the bosses, told them he was tired of getting burned. They gave
him a promotion to an easier job in a different division.
The foundry was hard work, but the pay was much better than what Nate could earn down South. He
was not qualified for office work, and he was content to muscle down for eight hours, then kick back
with his family.
His wife Peggy was beautiful, but she was a woman and a Negro. (She was only half-Negro, but in those
days mulattos were Negroes.) As such, her job as a receptionist at the downtown YWCA might be as
much as she could reasonably aspire to. But she had drive, the same drive that she imparted to her
eldest daughter. Seeking to climb the social mobility ladder, she played real estate. This undoubtedly
created friction between her and Nate, who after eight hours of shoveling was content to read the paper,
have a beer and watch TV.
24 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
No alcohol in the house
That was another source of friction. Peggy didnt allow alcohol in the housewhich also meant no visits
from his brothers, who drank.
Our mother wouldnt allow us to associate with my fathers brothers, says Donyales sister Lillian.
You cant do that to a grown man, tell him he cant have company in his own house, when hes
bringing money home, working every week. He has to have his way sometimes.
She was strong-willed and what she said went. There was no argument; thats the way it was. She was
strong; almost the head of the household. But the man has to be the head of the household. When you
have a 100% man like my dad, you cant have a second head of the household.
So they clashed. My dad was high-spirited and my mother was even more high-spirited. They clashed
on a lot of things.
If anyone, it was Donyales mother who was abusive to the children. Sanders Bryant remembers Lillian
telling him that Peggy was physically abusive to both Josephine and Donyale, hitting them at times.
Lillian concurs that Josephine had a rough time:. My mother treated her very harshly. But Donyale,
she says, got preferential treatment.
Where did Peggy get her aversion to demon rum? Was she traumatized early in life by an alcoholic
parent? Or did Nate have a drinking problem?
My favorite was my daddy, says Lillian. I was closer to him. Donyale loved him too, and visited
him whenever he and Peggy were between marriages. This suggests that Nate Freeman was not a
rummy.
However, everyone agrees that he did get drunk and beat Peggy on occasion.
By AA definition, if your consumption of alcohol negatively affects your life, youre a candidate for the
12 Steps. Beating your wife is a felony. So Nate had a problem, yes.
Peggy had a problem too: she was rigid, a control freak. And she was smart and sophisticatedhell, she
was even half whiteand she could talk rings around Nate. Both of their problems, really, were each
other. They loved each other and they hated each other.
Donyale loved both parents
Donyale loved her dad and she loved her mom. Her dad must have also brought fear into her heart. Not
that he would ever do anything to harm her, but if he came home with liquor on his breath, he and her
mom would shout. It scared her a lot when they shouted, because shouts could come to blows, and that
made her sick and took her right out of reality into dissociative denial. It was the most horrible of all the
bad memories Donyale Luna was learning to banish from her psycheout, where they could do her no
harm.
Or so she thought. She tried to keep it all out, says Sanders Bryant, but you could see some things got
in.
One day in March, 1965, about six months after Donyale had left for New York, Bryant visited the
family. He found Peggy sitting on Nates lap. They were considering yet another spin on their marriage-
25 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
go-round. I had never seen them so close, he said.
Sometime after he left, somebody pushed somebodys button and the koochie-koochie stoppedwell
never know how the argument started. Nate left and headed for the bar.
She makes me so mad, Im gonna punch out her lights. Ive done it before. True, but it made him feel so bad
when he sobered up, he swore hed never do it again.
But after he got mad he started getting scared, and another drink and the anger returned, only without
the shame this time, and he felt pretty righteous, and finally he figured it out: shes taking away my
manhood, trying to wear the pants in the family. Even my daughters can see that Im not half a man around her. If
I dont show them what a man is, they could turn out like her. And Ill show her too, bitch! Just a few more drinks
while I plan out what Im gonna say to her. She wont be talkin back to me if shes afraid Im gonna hit her; shell
listen to my side all right.
And finally Nate had enough to drink, and he had his words figured out, and off he went.
Peggy heard him pull into the driveway. There he is, steaming drunk again, thinks hes gonna hit me around
and hurt me, hurt me real bad and put bruises on my skin that makes me feel shame whenever anyone looks at me.
But hey, Im not gonna be freezing up in fear this time. No more! She opened her purse and got out the gun
she had bought for the next time. And Im not afraid to use it! Not to kill him: Ill shoot him in the leg.
Oh God, my hearts pounding, I can hardly breathe, I cant do ityes! Yes I can! She holds out the gun and
walks in a dream world to the door: You go away Nate. Do you hear? I got a gun and I aint afraid to
use it.
Listen to her, out on the porch, still yelling! Nate got out of the car and headed toward her.
A gun! He never figured on that.
But when she tried to aim it at him, Nate saw that she was too riled up to hold her hand steady. It just
pissed him off more. He walked straight at her, didnt even break his stride.
Peggy empties the gun
That was the final frustration for Peggy: didnt he even see the gun? A strange energy moved through
her body and she could barely hold it in her hand, which was shaking like she had the palsy. Suddenly
something else took control and the weapon exploded in her hand, and kept exploding, six shots in wild
succession, firing off in all directions.
Two bullets landed somewhere in distant corners of the neighborhood. Two more drilled holes in the
car that Nate was driving. One burrowed into the trunk of the tree in the front yard, where it remains to
this day. The otherby chance or in a moment of life-changing clarity?sped straight into Nathaniel
Freemans heart.
Was it the first bullet or the last? Even for this, there are two stories. Sanders Bryant says the last. Lillian,
who at age 18 witnessed the shooting, says it was the first.
My mother didnt want to kill him, she says. She just wanted to shoot him and knock him down or
something.
26 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
The house where the shooting occurred. 45 years later, a bullet remains lodged in the tree on the right
Bryant concurs: It wasnt a murder; it was almost a fluke. She wasnt angry; she was afraid, and he kept
coming at her. She told him to leave. He was coming toward the porch when he was shot. She was on
the porch and he was in the driveway. The distance between them was no more than here to there. She
missed five times.
Lillian called the ambulance. The hospital was half a block away and nobody tried to get him there.
Nobody tried to revive him or keep him awake or anything. They didnt do anything for him. I dont
want to talk about that any more.
The police arrested Peggy. Lillian, in shock, called Sanders Bryant, who came and stayed in the house
with her. The next day, after interrogating Peggy Freeman for 24 hours, the police called it self-defense
and released her. When Nate was laid out for burial, Peggy asked Sanders Bryant, who was a budding
photographer, to take a photo of him. She also sold Bryant the bullet-marred car.
Donyale stayed in New York
Donyale, who was in New York, did not come home for the funeral, something for which she still
catches flak on the Net.
Did I mention that the shooting happened in March, 1965? That was the very month her
groundbreaking Harpers Bazaar cover appeared. Andnot to get ahead of our story, but she also got
married that March. What an incredible three-way convergence of psyche-bending experiences for an
ultra-sensitive 18-year-old girl to undergo!
That ultra-sensitive girl had spent 18 years soaking in all the family dynamics, although her
understanding of them was probably suppressed, causing little-understood emotional energies to careen
wildly through her psyche and body.
Did Nates eldest daughter pay her respects in her own way, with some sort of spiritual ceremony? Or
did the lets-be happy mind of Donyale Luna simply give the incident its walking papers?
But go home? To a funeral? Go home to drench herself once again in the woes of that tragic war-torn
couple whom she claimed didnt even spawn her? Hell no, she didnt go back.
27 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
The world meets Donyale Luna. This is the March 1965 Harpers Bazaar cover that launched her
career. The magazine had never run a Negro on the cover before, and the editors made sure Donyale
was more vanilla than chocolate.
She got married instead.
__________________
Would you go back? Let us all know. Send a comment!
Sources:
Sanders Bryant III, conversations Sept.-Oct. 2009
Lillian Washington, conversation, Oct. 2009
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CATEGORIES African American, biography, donyale luna, fashion
Metamorphosis Part II
As a young teen Peggy Ann Freeman was crazy about Johnny Mathis. She was in love with him,
says her sister Lillian. He was so handsomea good-looking black person. She also liked Motown
and loved the movie West Side Story.
But this was the Beatnik era, and Peggy Ann, as she stepped into the role of Donyale Luna, acquired
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/00000012.jpg)
Donyale opposite Bob Moldowan in Detroit Civic Theatre production of Anything Goes. Donyale
played Chastity
more subterranean tastes. Jazz. Folk music, especially Joan Baez and Pete Seeger. Poetry. And of course
theatre. She hung out with beau/friend Sanders Bryant at a coffeehouse called the Chessmate. They took
in stage productions of Porgy and Bess.
Some pop stars made the cut through her evolving preferences: Marlon Brando, Sammy Davis Jr., the
entire Rat Pack. She enjoyed Dr. Zhivago and the original cast production of The Music Man.
And Elizabeth Tayloralthough when I took her to see Ms. Taylors Cleopatra, what enthralled her most
was the character of Cleopatra.
Young Donyale star-struck
The newly-minted Donyale Luna was star-struck. She dreamed of being a movie star herself.
Continuously. Thats all you would see, hear or smell from Donyale, says sister Lillian. Oh, Ive got
to go to practice. Ive got to go to rehearsal. Ive got to go to this place over here; were having practice.
Were having cast party. She was totally into it.
She was always busy, involved, Sanders Bryant concurs. She wasnt at home in front of the TV set;
she stayed out a lot. She didnt hang out with friends often because she was involved in plays after
school, singing, other activities.
Donyales constant whirl was painful to Lillian. I wanted to go too, she says, but she never invited
me and I didnt want to just bust in and be rude. I was so jealous I didnt know what to do. She was
always going somewhere and I couldnt go anywhere.
Donyale was nothing if not sensitive, and she must have felt Lillians unhappiness. Some big sisters
might try to include her. Others, especially anyone on as fast a track as Donyale Luna, spinning by her
younger sister as she danced into her dreams, might not.
At age 16 and 17, Donyale was performing onstage at the Civic Center Theatre in Detroit, appearing as
Cherry in Paint Your Wagon, Ariel in The Tempest, Chastity in Anything Goes and Terry (the lead) in Stage
29 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
(http://donyaleluna.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/diana-
ross-sp03.jpg)
Did Donyale sing with the Supremes? Diana Ross graduated from Cass Tech 1 years before Donyale
did from sister school Commerce High. Ms. Ross co-produced and starred in the movie Mahogany,
about a black supermodel, which some say is based on the life of Donyale Luna. Maybe Donyale was
the starting point, but there are few similarities.
Door.
Donyales first flirtation with fame may have come not under the limelight, however, but in another
arena. She loved singing and joined the Commerce High chorus, another small chorus at school and a
large choir in Glee Club as well. And she was talented enough to be accepted into the Honors Choir.
At that time Diana Ross was attending high school at Cass Tech, next door to Commerce. Sanders
Bryant was driving Donyale somewhere when the Supremes first song came on the radio. Imagine
when she told me she was singing backup when that was recorded! It almost caused me to have an
accident! He recalled dropping her off at the Motown door some months before. That door led
directly down to Studio A., he says. There was no lobby, nowhere else to go.
Sang with Supremes?
Lillian is skeptical that it happened. That was something big; she would have told me about that.
Its hard to know. Donyale was a master at deception, but her lies were usually more creative than
simply claiming she did something that she didnt.
Bryant, who took journalism classes with her in high school, believes that even more than her
well-chronicled ambition to be a great actress (like Anna Magnani), she aspired to writing screenplays
and stage plays. She had already written some screenplays, Bryant says. Andy Warhol shot Snow
White, which she wrote back in high school. She was planning to go to the University of Hawaiishe
still lived and talked this Hawaiian persona with meto pursue a writing career. She always thought in
international terms.
When I was seeing Donyale, whenever I mentioned my writing to her she would tell me she had written
eight books. Or four books, or several books: the number kept changing.
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What kind of books? I asked once.
Stories. Books of stories.
I asked her if I could see them, but none were forthcoming. She told me so many other things that
werent true that I didnt believe her. One of my many shocks in researching Donyale Luna 45 years
later was learning that yes, she had written books in high school. She may have been afraid to show
them to me because I wrote theatre reviews. I was young and my critiques were not always kind.
A natural born dancer
Teenage Donyale had yet another artistic love: dance. Early on she combined that with her thespian
ambitions: three of her four roles with the Civic Center Theatre were primarily dance roles. She was a
natural born dancer, says Roland Sharette, the theatres Managing Director.
What possessed Peggy Ann Freeman to rip up her entire personality and even her inner workings and
launch such a sweeping change in who she was? Physically there was the obviousto enhance her
chances of realizing her dreams of writing, acting and dancing. Underneath that lurked two deeper
motivations.
First, she lived inside a female form that daily grew increasingly unlike any other that she, or anyone
else, had ever seen. Maybe she was from the moon! She had a choice of slouching over and trying to look
invisible or of stepping into it, creating a being that could contain the vehicle and its strange, unearthly
beauty.
Yes, she was star-struck, yes she was driven to become famous. But that was only the surface
manifestation of an inner knowledge, of which she was most likely only hazily conscious, that she was
destined to live a mythic life.
This may have been part of what led her to Catholicism: she was looking for strength to meet her
destiny. Her joining the church was the formal beginning of a path of spiritual seeking that would wind
through psychedelics, the eclectic smorgasbord of Eastern mysticism that swept through the hippie
culture, stones and crystals, and something of her own creation, Future Visioning, a pre-New Age
version of creating your identity by imagining it.
Did she succeed? Who ruled whom? Which won?
Second, part of becoming Donyale Luna was choosing to always be happy. She wiped out all the
negative and accepted only the positive, says Lillian. That was Donyale Luna. Her world, her way.
This suggests that, for whatever reasons, young Peggy Ann Freeman spent a lot of her time feeling
unhappy. Unhappy over what? Two big issues come to mind. Well look at one of them next time in
Four Weddings and a Funeral: Donyales Parents.
Did this post hit a chord? Send a comment.
Sources:
Sanders Bryant III, conversations, Sept.-Oct. 2008
Yvonne Petrie, Barefoot Girl with Chic, Detroit News, April 1966
Richard J. Powell, Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture, U. of Chicago Press, 2008
31 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
Tags: Diana Ross & the Supremes (https://donyaleluna.wordpress.com/tag/diana-ross-the-
supremes/), Donyale Luna (https://donyaleluna.wordpress.com/tag/donyale-luna/), Donyale Luna
actress (https://donyaleluna.wordpress.com/tag/donyale-luna-actress/), hippie culture
(https://donyaleluna.wordpress.com/tag/hippie-culture/), jazz & folk music
(https://donyaleluna.wordpress.com/tag/jazz-folk-music/)
COMMENTS Leave a Comment
Metamorphosis: Peggy Ann Freeman becomes
Donyale Luna
(This a long one; Ive divided it into two parts. Since the only photo extant of Donyale Luna at this time
in her life is her high-school graduation photo, I have tried to be creative.)
The child is father of the man
William Wordsworth
The girl is mother of the woman
what Wordsworth would have written if she were a woman
During the course of her high-school years, Peggy Ann Freeman undertook one of the most radical
personal transformations imaginable. In what her younger sister Lillian still refers to almost 50 years
later as The Great Change, she shed her childhood as Peggy Ann and bloomed into one of the most
unique personae of her time: Donyale Luna. It didnt happen overnight. Peggy Ann carefully
constructed Donyale Luna piece by piece. While the metamorphosis was essentially complete by
graduation day, the fine-tuning into eccentric diva continued over many years.
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/dsc00373_23.jpg)
Donyales high-school graduation photo, published in June 1964 and taken in autumn of 1963. She
looks attractive but not extraordinarily beautiful; her height doesnt show. When I started seeing her a
few months after this, she was leagues more stunning, with her hair down and her eyesthe photo
only hints at their size. On her face is a subdued version of the perpetual smile that she wore when I
knew her. Photo courtesy Burton Collection, Detroit Public Library main branch
Wear your own clothes; dont touch my clothes. This is among the photos Richard Avedon took of
Donyale wearing Paco Rabanne outfits.
The Great Change began as Peggy Ann and Lillian entered their teens. Peggy Ann began distancing
herself from Lillian and the family. Except for Church and the outings to museums and movies, they
saw her less and less.
For Lillian, part of the separation came because they now attended different schools. Peggy Ann was
bright and already ambitious: she applied herself and got into prestigious High School of Commerce,
which, along with next-door Cass Tech, were the schools where judges, politicians, professionals
anybody who was anybodysent their kids. I wasnt dumb, says Lillian; I just didnt do my work.
I didnt have the kind of motivation she had. Lillian attended Central High.
The two sisters also didnt share the usual gossip about boys. Donyale withdrew. She had her own way
of doing everything. She didnt need me for anything. I felt hurt about that. Everything changed.
Donyale wanted lots of babies
Donyale did confide in Lillian that she wanted to have lots of babies. We both did, says Lillian. When
youre from a small family, you want to have more family around you.
Another point of separation, unusual for sisters so close in age: they didnt share clothes. That was a
big thing with her, Lillian says. Wear your own clothes; dont touch my clothes. My clothes are
folded up in my drawer. You leave my clothes alone; youve got your own clothes.
By childhoods end Donyale had constructed the barrier between her and the person she was closest to:
her sister. Did she ever come back into close contact again?
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By the age of 15, Donyale was 510 and rail-thin, and on her way to 63 by graduation. (Was she really
63? Ill talk about that in a future blog.) How many items of clothing could she share with Lillian, who
topped out at about 58?
Of course, a big part of the metamorphosis was orchestrated by God. Not just any woman can be 63,
110 to 120 pounds, and so beautiful that people would stop eating if they were in a restaurant and they
saw her walking by, according to her friend in later life, fellow supermodel Pat Cleveland.
From gangly to heartthrob
Peggy Ann Freeman was tall and gangly; some students made fun of her because of her height and
unusual looks, recalls fellow Condon Jr. High student Kenneth Collier, who nonetheless had a teen
crush on her because she was so beautiful. By high school, Donyale Luna was unarguably gorgeous.
She was tall and lean, and a very imposing figure, says ex-beau Sanders Bryant. The guys were
intimidated. Even the girls. People would just back up.
Donyale wore only the lightest of makeup when I met her; with those features she didnt need much.
Her looks were, besides spectacular, picture-perfect. I dont remember any jewelry either, though Bryant
says she wore her mothers bracelets up above her elbows.
Earlier on Donyale had one blemish, which she corrected before I met her: a gap in her teeth. Right in
the middle, says Lillian. She fixed it herself for awhile, putting some gum or something hard in it and
letting it stay there. Then she got her teeth fixed.
The physical transformation was now complete. Kenneth Collier ran into her at a department store and
called out Peggy. But by this time she was Donyale Luna and just smiled at me. She was even more
beautiful than before. She was soon to become the most sought-after, famous and highly paid fashion
model in the world.
Donyale Luna from Hawaii
When Sanders Bryant met the unfolding diva at age 15, she was already radiant and gorgeous. They
were in the Cass Tech high school cafeteria, and our girl was working on a film script. She introduced
herself as Donyale Luna, recently arrived from Hawaii. Her parents had been killed in an auto accident
and she was adopted. She continued that story as long as I knew her, says Bryant, even after I knew
her mother and father and that she was born in Ford Hospital right here in Detroit.
When I met her at 17, she said she was Polynesian. The car crash and dead parents were still in the story,
although a few months later she told me she lived with her mother.
Whats interesting about the car crash part, says Lillian, is that when Donyale was about 15 or 16,
she was practicing driving in the garage. She went forward when she meant to go backward and drove
the car right through the garage. It made her afraid to drive. I dont think she ever drove.
Besides being the most strangely beautiful woman I had ever seen, Donyale also had the most beautiful
voice, a voice like music. Were the vocals part of her makeover?
Donyales unique speech
Some reporters claimed that Donyale made up her accent. It wasnt an affectation, claims Sanders
Bryant. It was actually her real self, her true speech. Donyale, her sister and her mother all sounded
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Donyale's youthful conversion to Catholicism inaugurated a lifetime of spiritual exploration. Photo by
Luigi Cazzaniga
alike. Often when I called Id have to ask, Who am I talking to? Once I spent 15 minutes talking with
her mother when I thought it was Donyale.
The way she had of talking, that was made up! says Lillian. That was Donyale Luna.. Lillian does a
great imitation: My name is Donyale Luna.
It was like she was singing. But she never talked that way until she became Donyale. Then her voice
changed too. By the time she finished high school, she completely re-made her self. To a T.
Again, here we have two of the people who were closest to Donyale 180 degrees apart over a basic
aspect of her life. Whom to believe? Bryant didnt meet her until she was 15. I figure she may have
completed the vocal component of Donyale Luna before then and had him fooled too.
Donyale stopped going to church with the family. Most teens do. But at about age 16 she also started
leaving the house in the wee hours each morning.
Where you going out every morning with a rag on your head? Lillian asked her. (The rag was a
scarf.)
Catholic convert
Im going to Mass. Unlike most teens, and certainly unlike most youngsters with a beatnik bent,
Donyale converted from the familys Presbyterian faith to Catholicism. The Catholic church was just
behind the Freeman house on Glendale Ave. Sometimes teens will switch churches through the
influence of a friend. But as far as anyone knows, Donyale did it on her own.
What could have attracted someone with such avant-garde tastes to Catholicism, which even then was
the religion young people left, not joined? I think it was mostly the pomp and circumstance, says
Sanders Bryant, who witnessed the conversion the formality and the ritual of it.
The pomp and circumstance and ritual must have appealed to Donyales love of theatre. And the
formality may have given her a sense of structure that she must have needed sorely as she ventured out
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alone on her great adventure as a Mythic Being. She never formally left Catholicism, although she
eventually just got too busy to continue her daily devotions. She continued exploring psychedelic and
mystical experiences until her death at 33 the same age as You Know Who when He died.
Sources:
Kenneth Collier, blog commentrats, lost the blog
High School of Commerce, Detroit, yearbook, 1964
Barbara Summers, Skin Deep: Inside the World of Black Fashion Models, Amistad Press, 1998
Tags: Donyale Luna (https://donyaleluna.wordpress.com/tag/donyale-luna/), Pat Cleveland
(https://donyaleluna.wordpress.com/tag/pat-cleveland/), psychedelic experience
(https://donyaleluna.wordpress.com/tag/psychedelic-experience/)
COMMENTS 4 Comments
Before Donyale Luna came Peggy Ann Freeman
We have seen that Donyale Luna, the first black supermodel, was not as weird a child as we might have
supposed Like Tillie Williams, she was odd and queer, but she was not peculiar. Now a look at her life
growing up. We are all indebted to Donyales sister Lillian Washington for these first-ever glimpses into
Donyales childhood.
Peggy Ann Freeman was reared on Detroits near northeast side. Her father, Nathaniel Freeman,
worked for 37 years at Ford Motor Co., mostly in the foundry. Her mother, Peggy Freeman, was the
receptionist at the downtown YWCA for 27 years. Although her parents relationship was difficult and
her father often lived separately, the family was relatively stable and no more dysfunctional than most.
A notable feature of Peggy Anns childhood is that the Freemans were always moving: her sister Lillian
recalls living in six houses in the space of about six years. I didnt understand when I was young why
we moved so much, Lillian says. Later she figured out that her mother was playing real estate. She
bought the houses, then she moved and rented them out, or wed just swap one for the other. They were
nice houses.
In those days, the combined salaries of a factory worker and a YWCA receptionist allowed for real estate
investments. Says Sanders Bryant, who met Donyale at age 15 and remained friends throughout her life:
A factory workers earnings were actually more than a lot of professional peoples. Not more than
doctors, but more than teachers, definitely. It afforded a lifestyle where, particularly in Detroit, you
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37 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
No photos are extant of Donyale between the ages of 7 months and 17 or 18 years. Is this how she
looked as a schoolgirl?
/ds-house.jpg)
This house, on Burlingame St., was Donyale Lunas last home in Detroit. I took the photo in 2009; you
can see a Condemned sign on the door. Childhood photos of Donyale and letters to her family may
still remain inside, ready to be destroyed by the wrecking ball
could own property. So even though it was a working-class family, with both of them employed they
did well. Donyales mother owned several houses and apartment buildings. She was an astute
businesswoman. She wanted to move and become more upscale.
Scotten Ave. house
Although each house was more upscale than the last, Lillians fondest memories are of the first one, on
Scotten Ave. We had a big back yard with two apple trees and a plum and a pear tree. My mother was
an excellent cook. She made everything you can make with those apples: apple turnovers, apple fritters,
apple pie, applesauceyou name it, she made it.
In this house, in which she and Peggy Ann were raised until junior high, the two sisters were also
closest. They were just a year apart, and they played together at everything.
Grade school days were pretty Elm Street. The girls each had their own bedroom. School days they
would get up, wash up, get dressed and eat breakfast. My mother always made us eat breakfast. She
cooked everything from scratch. We had oatmeal a lot, sometimes grapefruit, sometimes regular cereal.
Then they would get their gear together and off they went. They ate lunch at school. School lunches
were good back then, says Lillian.
The Freemans didnt take family vacations together, but Peggy Ann and Lillian enjoyed summer
vacation at home. In the afternoons, they would go swimming in the big pool at the Cronx gym, where
Tommy Hearns and other pro boxers trained.
They also attended a summer camp program sponsored by the City of Detroit. Wed go by bus to Belle
Isle or River Rouge Park. Wed pack our lunch, and they served hot dogs and soda. Wed walk on
adventure trails, eat lunch, then play games.
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(http://donyaleluna.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/r3-01.jpg)
According to many sources, Frank Horvat shot this famous "Chrysalis" photo in New York in 1960,
when Donyale was only 14.
(http://donyaleluna.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/r3-021.jpg)
Not so. Horvat's site gives a 1960 date for both of these photos, but the photographer says he erred
and the year was likely 1964.
Donyale consumed more than her share of hot dogs and soda. Amazingly for someone so tall and so
thin, she always had a voracious appetite. Shed eat anything and everything and never gain a pound,
says Lillian. She was raised like that. When your mother cooks from scratch, when you have a good
cook for a mother
The family attended church on Sunday, and afterward they would visit the art museum and the other
museums on Woodward, and then eat dinner in a restaurant. The museums were Big Peggys idea. We
got our cultural upbringing from my mother, recalls Lillian.
They also went to the movies a lot. That was the big thing, that and going to swimming practice, says
Lillian. My dad was usually living in the house then, and sometimes hed take us to the show on the
bus.
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This photo by Richard Avedon, of Donyale in a Paco Rabanne dress, couldnt get published when it
was taken. In 2009 it was blown up 15 feet high to advertise the Avedon exhibit at the Detroit Institute
of Arts (DIA). It brought Donyale back home to DIA, one of her favorite childhood and teen-age
haunts.
Dancing with Donyale
Lillian also remembers dancing with Peggy Ann and one of their girlfriends in a talent contest at the
church. We wore white pleated skirts and tap shoes and black leotards and black shirts, she says. We
didnt win, but we were so cute. The memory brings laughter.
Later on, during junior high school, Peggy Ann and Lillian attended dancing lessons together, studying
ballet, tap and modern dance. We used to take our little cases with our tap-dancing shoes and catch the
bus, recalls Lillian. For Lillian it was just fun: she had no dreams of becoming a dancer. But Peggy was
much more serious about it. Even then, everything she did was exotic and different. Thats why she got
noticed so much. She was different.
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/dsc006831.jpg)
Donyale never lost her love of animals. She was often photographed with her little white terrier, and
once made a scene when a restaurant wouldnt let it dine with her. Does anyone out there know her
dog's name? Photo: still from "Tonight Let's All Make Love in London" by Peter Whitehead
Yep, that's our girl in front. In Detroit, Donyale was considered a better dancer than an actress.
Christmas was a big deal for the girls: tree with ornaments, presents, decorations all around the house.
Birthdays, on the other hand, were low-key. Mom didnt allow birthday parties or gifts. Just Happy
Birthday, and that was it, Lillian recalls. I might have had one or two birthday cakes my whole
childhood.
The household usually included pets, more than likely strays that Peggy Ann brought home. Sanders
Bryant remembers her making him stop his car so she could rescue some kittens from under a car at
3am.
Lots of pets
She loved little animals, says Lillian. If my mother and father allowed it, shed have it. Dogs,
mostly, and they each had a rabbit. A cat once, but not when Nate lived at home: he didnt like cats.
While she lived at home, Peggy Ann Freeman never had to hold a job. Her job was acting and being in
plays and the arts, says Lillian.
Overall, says ex-beau Sanders Bryant, Donyale lived a fairly comfortable life growing up. It was a
nice neighborhood, she went to a good school, she had clothesthe family was fairly affluent; she
wasnt deprived.
Mom was pretty stern though. She didnt allow her daughters to associate with their uncles on dads
side. In fact, she didnt allow Nates brothers in the house. They drank, and she didnt like alcohol in
the house, says Lillian. You could barely smoke a cigarette, even though she smoked.
Sanders Bryant says that Lillian told him Big Peggy was quite harsh and physically abusive to
Donyale and her elder half-sister Josephine. Lillian concurs about Josephine: She was treated like a
princess in Georgia. And then she came home and the walls came tumbling down. My mother treated
her very harshly. But, she says, if anything, Peggy Ann got preferential treatment. She wasnt tough
on Donyale at all. Donyale got better everything.
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A high-energy girl
Maybe big sister had mom wrapped the same way she had whomever else she chose to. The most signal
quality of young Peggy Ann Freeman was her energy level. She didnt have an off-switch, says
Bryant. She was always upbeat. She ran at such a high-octane level that it was almost draining.
This extraordinary effervescence gave Peggy Ann a hypnotic effect on people even before she made the
transition from gangly to beautiful. An example: Although she was terrible with money (a trait that
didnt change when she became Donyale), she had, according to Lillian, a talent for getting money out
of other people.
Shed think of something and get a container and collect money for a project. Shed say, Oh, this is for
this fund. Oh, I need bus fare. Or, Would you like to contribute to? yata yata. She would keep the
money. Id say, How are you doing it? Youre swindling these people. Whoever she was talking to
would be hypnotized; they would give her anything she asked for.
She could be overwhelming at times. Convincing, and overwhelming too. But not with everyone.
Shed pick her people. Shed check them out, and if she figured she couldnt get away with anything, or
if things werent going the way she wanted them to go, she didnt turn on her wiles.
Bryant also remembers Peggy Ann double-dipping allowances, collecting from both parents when
father was living apart.
Although I never saw it, Peggy Ann apparently had a temper. She had a long fuse, says Lillian, but
dont get her mad. When the girls were teenagers, Peggy Ann threw a garbage can at Lillianone of
those little decorative tin garbage cans. She hit me right in the eye. I had to walk around with sunglasses
to cover up my black eye.
But temperamental con artist or no, the two agree that Peggy Ann was also an extremely kind-hearted
person. She was very conscious and feeling, according to Bryant. She was always happy and
smiling, says Lillian, and shed make you smile and be happy.
So, what thoughts do you have about Donyales childhood? Click the Comment button and let your
fingers do the talking. (WordPress is at it again. If you cant access the Comments by clicking the button
below, look to the right and click the microscopic Comment button there.)
_______________________________________
Next: Metamorphosis: Peggy Ann becomes Donyale Luna
Sources: Sanders Bryant III, conversations, Sept.-Oct.2009
horvatland.com (http://horvatland.com) (Frank Horvat photos),
Frank Horvat, email, June 19, 2010
Tags: black fashion icon (https://donyaleluna.wordpress.com/tag/black-fashion-icon/), black
supermodel (https://donyaleluna.wordpress.com/tag/black-supermodel/), Donyale Luna
(https://donyaleluna.wordpress.com/tag/donyale-luna/), first black supermodel
42 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
COMMENTS 2 Comments
She was a very weird child, even from birth
"What, me weird?"
If you have read anything on the Net about Donyale Luna, the first black supermodel, you have most
likely encountered the quote in the headline, attributed to a relative, perhaps many times. Since thats
all the information the Net has to offer on Donyales childhood, its easy to conclude that she was a
weird child.
Heres the full quotation:
She was a very weird child, even from birth, living in a wonderland, a dream. Wed say, Peggy, these things arent
true. Maybe thats why she was so good in drama class.
The quote was given to the New York Times by Donyales elder half-sister Josephine, who was several
years Donyales senior. Josephine was sent back to Georgia to live with her aunt when Donyale was four
or five and didnt return for 10 years, at which time she was in her 20s and Donyale was about 15.
Josephines evaluation covers Donyales very earliest years, before her personality was formed, an age
when almost anyone can seem weird.
Donyale was real
The quote makes Donyale sound like Laura in The Glass Menagerie rather than a little girl with a
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wonderful imagination who often preferred her creations to conventional reality, and who expressed
them more with enthusiasm than confusion over their veracity. Ive known lots of little girls like that,
and some not so little. Boys create different realities, but they do it too. Donyale was real, says her full
sister Lillian, all through her childhood.
Does that single sentence even reflect Josephines opinion of Donyale, or has it been pulled out of
context and assigned much more weight than it deserves? Soon after Josephine returned to Detroit, she
married and left the nest. Did she still think her half-sister was weird? Not too weird to entrust with her
kids: Donyale baby-sat for her regularly.
If you read the only biography of Donyale Luna to date, The Imperfect Dream, by Dorothy Marie Wingo, a
self-published (Vantage Press) offering with a limited run published in 1998, you learn that Donyales
mother shot her father in 1950 while Little Peggy (Donyale) and her sister Deborah (now Lillian
Washington), aged 5 and 4, looked on in horror:
Late into the night, they (the two girls) were suddenly awakened from their sleep by the sound of loud voices
coming from the kitchen. The harsh voices grew louder and louder. They heard thuds and screams. Quick sharp
sounds similar to those coming from firecrackers brought the girls hastily to their feet. They raced through the
darkened hallway toward the kitchen. Beyond the dim light of the kitchen, the girls could see their father lying
on the floor and their mother standing over him, continuing to empty the chamber of the gun into his body.
When the police arrived:
Little Peggy seemed to be in a state of shock.
An experience that traumatic is enough to make anyone weird, right?
Off by 15 years
Only thing is, it didnt happen like that. According to everyone else who would know, including kid
sister Lillian and the Detroit Police Dept. Homicide Bureau, the shooting occurred not in 1950 but in
March of 1965, after Donyale was grown and living in New Yorkin fact, the very month of her
groundbreaking first magazine cover, for Harpers Bazaar. And, as we shall see in a later blog, it didnt
happen that way at all.
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/dsc003724.jpg)
Donyale, still P Freeman in her yearbook photo, was popular in high school. Photo courtesy Burton
Collection, Detroit Public Library main branch
This photo in The Imperfect Dream identifies the tall girl with the flower in her hair as Donyale. But
according to Donyales sister Lillian, who gave Ms. Wingo the photo, its a neighborhood girl.
As I said earlier, reconstructing Donyale Lunas life is like chasing a ghost through a house of mirrors.
How did Ms. Wingo get such a seminal event so wrong? From her source: Josephine. Josephine married
Ms. Wingos brother, Gerald. She was reluctant to talk with Ms. Wingo about Donyale (she wouldnt
talk to me at all), so all the information was relayed through Gerald.
Ms. Wingo, a lovely-looking woman of 85 who taught English all her life, lives with her son in a
well-to-do neighborhood in Troy, just north of Detroit. How could Josephine be off by 15 years? I
asked her.
She blocked it out of her mind.
If The Imperfect Dream is any indication, Im afraid Josephine blocked a lot of memories out of her mind.
Donyale wasnt the only one in the family who created her own reality. Anything Josephine says about
her must be taken with a grain of salt. Make that a gram of salt.
Donyale was normal
The standard Internet perception of Donyales childhood is of one filled with pain, with a brutal,
abusive fathera dreadful reality from which she retreated into a fantasy world to escape. Donyales
sister Lillian, who grew up with her, paints quite a different portrait of her early years: She was
carefree and a typical young child and teen-age girl. She was normal.
She also had a sharp mind. Getting into High School of Commerce, where Donyale attended, wasnt
automatic: you needed good grades in Condon Jr. High. (Lillian didnt have them; Donyale did.)
She had a lot of friends, says Lillian. She knew a lot of people and she was a happy person. Her
yearbook was filled with signatures on the outside and the inside. You fold it open like thisall this was
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(http://donyaleluna.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/00000012_2_2.jpg)
Donyale Luna at age 18 in Oct. 1964, made up as Chastity for the Detroit Civic Theatre production of
Stage Door. Barely visible is the star-shaped beauty mark she pasted on her cheek for the role.
filled up, all that was filled up, and the other sheet on top, and the same way at the end of the book. She
had plenty of friends. She got along well with people.
But, she admits, Donyale was sometimes off in the clouds. Because she wanted to be. You couldnt
get deep with her. She had a shield up.
Kind of a kook
Roland Sharette, who directed Donyale in Detroits Civic Center Theatre productions in 1963 and 64,
remembering Donyale walking barefoot and feeding popcorn to the pigeons in the park, calls her kind
of a kook. Kook is a gentler term than weird, but maybe still too strong. Donayle was 16 or 17 and
went barefoot? Ive gone barefoot most of my life and Im only marginally kooky. Besides, the unshod
nethers are overplayed; just a part of Donyales mythology. Look at her non-modeling photos: shes
usually wearing shoes. She did when I knew her. She apparently didnt the day photographer David
McCabe spotted her walking through the Fisher Theatreand there a legend was born.
Hey, if youre female and 63 tall, where do you find shoes that fit? Is it kooky to not want to torture
your feet?
And she fed the pigeons? If she were poisoning themyeah, weird. But doesnt everyone feed the
pigeons when theyre a kid?
When ex-beau and lifelong friend Sanders Bryant met Donyale at age 15, she was writing a play. Now
thats pretty unusual, but I wouldnt call it weird: its justdifferent. Commendably different: how
many 15-year-old dramatists do you know?
She was sharp, recalls Bryant. She was quite observant. And she didnt have an off-switch. She ran
at such a high-octave level that it was almost draining. She was always upbeat, very conscious and very
feeling. Her enthusiasm drew you in, made you part of the experience. She had the same effect on
everybody.
But, he acknowledges, it was hard to get into her head. You never knew whether she was putting you
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(http://donyaleluna.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/downloadedfile1.jpeg)
Detroit Poet John Sinclair, for whom John Lennon headlined a rally while he was serving a 10-year
sentence for possessing two marijuana cigarettes, knew Donyale.
on. None of us could ever tell her reality. But she always knew her identity.
When I was dating Donyale, she was generally upbeat, sociable and fun, occasionally moody. And she
sometimes did things that weredifferent.
One night we were driving to Albion College, about 100 miles from Detroit, where I had attended the
year before. It was a winter night; a full moon filled the sky and cast a soft luster across the forests and
fields. Suddenly Donyale shrieked, Stop the car! She had never issued an order before, and even as I
slammed on the brakes I heard more excitement than emergency in her voice. She leaped out of the car
and started chasing a rabbit through a fieldchasing, it seemed, with no intention to catch it, only to
share in its wild energy.
To this day, nobody else has ever done anything like that around me. I guess you could call it weird. But
I can still see Donyales long, long legs pumping through the field, her jeans glinting in the moonlight.
It remains the most Romantic memory in my lifeRomantic in the spiritual sense of her feeling her
oneness with the rabbit, and with all of Creation.
John Sinclair: She was cuckoo
Both Donyale and I knew John Sinclair, who later founded the White Panthers and managed the kickass
band MC5. John told me she was cuckoo.
He may have remembered a party I brought her to. Donyale immediately plunked a chair down in the
middle of the crowded living room floor and spent the evening knitting (or crocheting; she knew both),
looking at no one, speaking only when spoken to.
At the time I thought that was strange. I might have even acknowledged it as weirdthen. But I was
unaware of her driving ambition. Looking back at it with that knowledgewhat better, more creative
way to get a roomful of theatre people to notice you?
Cuckoo, John? Cuckoo like a fox.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
As usual with our Princess of Paradox, one can go either way. Nobody would ever call Donyale Luna
normal. But does that mean she was weird? Or justdifferent?
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What do you think? Send a comment.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Sources
Sanders Bryant III, conversation, Sept.-Oct. 2009
Yvonne Petrie, Barefoot Girl with Chic, Detroit News, April 1966
Lillian Washington, conversation, Sept.-Oct. 2009
Dorothy Marie Wingo, The Imperfect Dream, Vantage Press, 1998
Dorothy Marie Wingo, conversation, Sept. 2009
Tags: black supermodel (https://donyaleluna.wordpress.com/tag/black-supermodel/), David McCabe
(https://donyaleluna.wordpress.com/tag/david-mccabe/), Donyale Luna
(https://donyaleluna.wordpress.com/tag/donyale-luna/), first black supermodel
COMMENTS 7 Comments
Donyale Luna arrives on the planet, somewhere, sometime
Donyale Luna, the first black supermodel, was, for two years in the U.S. and for a dozen years afterward
in Europe, famous beyond her wildest dreams. (And she dreamed wildly!) Time magazine proclaimed
1966 The Year of Luna. Andy Warhol used her in five movies. She was Salvador Dalis compadre and
favorite model. Her lovers were film and rock starseven a real prince.
The spotlight was ubiquitous and intense. Yet it captured no more than her silhouette. Her inner life,
and even large chunks of what was knowable, remained wrapped in mystery.
This is as Donyale wanted it. Once past her first few interviews in her native Detroit, she hit her stride as
an enigma, seldom giving two reporters the same answer to the same question. When I encountered this
trait in her at age 17 or 18 (Which was it? More about that later), I concluded that she had a hard time
separating reality from fantasy. While I still think that was partly so, her later interviews show that she
clearly liked to play with the media.
At any rate, here and now in 2010 a host of Internet sites about her are issuing contradictory facts or
information that just aint so. Donyales ghost rises from her grave, gives us that Giocanda smile and
says, Im seven feet tall, I can see out of my third eye and I eat rats.
The intrigue starts with her birth: when was it? and continues right up to her death: what was the cause?
This post examines just the beginnings. And only the basics, the kind of questions to which we more
prosaic mortals give the same monotonous answers every day: name, birthdate, place of birth.
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"I'm from the moon, baby!" Donyale as Salome in Carmelo Bene's 1972 film, head shorn before a
blood-red moon
In the 1930s and 1940s Henry Ford, already one of Americas most innovative geniuses, came up with
perhaps his most novel idea: pay Negroes as much as whites to work in his auto factory. This altered
Americas sociological landscape as radically as his Model T and other vehicles altered the physical
landscape. Negroes poured into Detroit from the South. Along with them came a man named Hertzog,
who was not Negro but German. But he lived with a tall, dark and beautiful woman named Peggy.
Peggy was mulatto, but at that time in America anyone with one drop of Negro blood was considered
Negro. The Hertzogs had a daughter, Josephine, born sometime around 1936. Their relationship went on
the rocks, and soon after their arrival in Detroit Peggy was on her own. She shipped Josephine back to
Georgia to be raised by her sister.
The tragic circumstances that led to the star-crossed union of Peggy with Nathaniel Freeman are lost in
the mists of time. We know only that Nates family also arrived from Georgia to cash in on Henry Fords
magnanimity, and he and Peggy met and eventually married.
Nate, like Peggy, may not have been a full-blooded Negro. His youngest daughter Lillian identifies him
as a black man from Georgia. But his eldest daughter Peggy Ann (aka Donyale Luna) claimed he was,
among other things, Mexican and Quechuan, from the Islands. Now, Quechuan is not an ethnicity but
a family of languages, spoken originally by the Incas. Its still spread among the indigenous tribes of
northwestern South America.
Donyale is a most unreliable source. But the photo below shows a man whose high cheekbones and
narrow nose look more Incan than Negro: might Donyale have known something about her father that
Lillian did not? Quechuan is not spoken in the Caribbean. But Nate or his forbears could have moved.
Negro or Native American, he must have descended from slaves to carry the surname Freeman.
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/00000002.jpg)
Dad and Peggy Ann, age 7 months, from The Imperfect Dream, a fictionalized biography of Donyale
by Dorothy Maria Wingo. This is the only known extant photo of Nathaniel Freeman and the only
known extant photo of Donyale before she was 17.
What was her name?
Nate and Peggy conceived two daughtersand here, at its start, we enter the maze of conundrums that
made up the life of Donyale Luna. The first daughter, Peggy Ann, re-named herself Donyale Luna in
high school and insisted thereafter that Luna was her real fathers last name. Donyale Luna was the
short version: the full name was Peggy Anne Donyale Aragonea Peugot Luna. She frequently gave
the whole mouthful to the media, who duly reported it as her birth name. At least one top current
website, fashion insider (http://www.thefashioninsider.com), still repeats it.
Donyales parents named her after her mother, Peggy Freeman, adding a middle Ann to keep the two
from becoming confused with each other on documents, forms, mail etc. At home they were simply Big
Peggy and Little Peggy. Duke University art historian Richard Powell, Donyales most accurate
biographer, inexplicably tacks an a onto her middle name: Anna. But according to younger sister
Lillian, and to various newspaper articles in Detroit, she was born Peggy Ann Freeman, no a after Ann
and no e either.
Birthplace?
Where was Donyale Luna born? When ex-beau and lifelong friend Sanders Bryant met her at age 15, she
told him she was from Hawaii. When I met her a couple years later, she was Polynesian. During her
final decade, in Italy, she often told the media that she came from Boston. She also told them she ate
three kilos of meat every day and had three brothers who played in a band, but they still duly printed
Boston without checking.
Donyale continued the Hawaiian charade with Bryant all her life, even though he was a close friend of
the whole family and knew she was born right there in grimy old Detroit. In Henry Ford Hospital, he
says.
Eventually, when asked where she was born, the diva came up with the last word: Im from the moon,
baby!
Birthdate?
Finally, when did this mystery woman arrive on the planet? Four dates are in contention: Aug. 31, 1945
and 1946, and Jan. 1, 1945 and 1946.
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/dsc00373_25.jpg)
P Freeman graduated from Detroits High School of Commerce in Jan. 1964. Photo courtesy of
Burton Collection, Detroit Public Library, main branch
Richard Powell claims it was Aug 31, 1946. His source, who ought to know, is Donyales mother, quoted
in The Detroit News. Judith Stone of the New York Times, who claims Donyales birth certificate as
authority for her name, pegs her as 18 years old when her landmark Harpers Bazaar cover appeared in
Jan. 1965, which also jibes with the 1946 date.
I too subscribe to Aug. 1946. When I met Donyale in Dec. 1963 or Jan. 1964, she told me she was 17. I
know better than to take Donyales word for anything. But what high-school girl lies about her age
backwards, especially to an older boyfriend and his cohorts?
However, sister Lillian, who also ought to know, claims she was born in August, 1946, when Donyale
was already a year old. Ex-beau Sanders Bryant, born Aug. 27, 1945, insists that he and Donyale were
only a few days apart in age.
What can we learn from Donyales high-school yearbook? P Freeman graduated in Jan. 1964. Most
kids enter kindergarten at age 5, turn 6 during the school year and graduate 12+ years later in June at
age 18. Those born in summer, like Donyale, enter school so soon after their fifth birthday that theyre
still 5 when kindergarten ends in June and therefore still only 17 when they graduate in June 12 years
later.
Those in the January class either take an extra load and graduate early or fail some classes and graduate
late. Donyale was a bright student; she conceivably could have finished school early. If she were
scheduled to graduate in June of 1964, she would have been in kindergarten from Sept. 1951 to June
1952, placing her birthdate in 1946.
But Lillian believes Donyale had to make up some classes (probably because she took too many artistic
electives). That means she should have graduated in June 1963, at age 17, and sets her birthday in Aug.
1945. That also jibes with the birthdate Lillian ascribes to her.
The Jan. 1 dates appear on various Internet sites. Most of them stem from Wikipedia, which says Jan. 1,
1945. Where did Wikipedia get the date from? If Donyale Luna were to make up her birthday, what
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This uncredited photo from Richard Avedons spread in the April, 1965 Harpers Bazaar accompanied
the article Barefoot Girl with Chic, by Detroit News Fashion Editor Yvonne Petrie, a year later.
Petrie reported that Donyale was 19 when the article appeared, which would set her birthday in Aug.
1946.
better one to choose than Jan. 1? Not that our girl would ever do a thing like that!
(Note to Djellabah, who wrote the Wikipedia entry: If you read this, will you please send a comment? Id like to
compare notes with you.)
Did Judith Stone of the New York Times actually see Donyales birth certificate? For some reason birth
records are confidential to anyone but immediate familyeven records of celebrities who have been
dead for 31 years. The mystery could be solved in a moment if the Michigan Dept. of Vital Statistics
would simply make the document available.
So there you have it: three solid sources, including (indirectly) Donyales mother, assert that she was
born Aug. 31, 1946. Two probably even better sources say Aug. 31, 1945. Which date is more persuasive
to you?
NEXT BLOG: She was always a weird childbut was she?
Sources:
High School of Commerce, Detroit, yearbook, 1964, in Detroit Public Library, main branch, Burton
Collection
Yvonne Petrie, Barefoot Girl with Chic, Detroit News, April ?, 1966
Richard J. Powell, Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black portraiture, U. of Chicago Press, 2008
Judith Stone, Luna, Who Dreamed She was Snow White, New York Times, May 19, 1968.
Lillian Washington, conversations, Oct. 2009 & July 2010
52 de 53 16-02-2014 13:19
wikipedia: donyale luna (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donyale_luna)
Tags: Dali's model (https://donyaleluna.wordpress.com/tag/dalis-model/), Donyale Luna
(https://donyaleluna.wordpress.com/tag/donyale-luna/), first black cover girl
(https://donyaleluna.wordpress.com/tag/first-black-cover-girl/), first black supermodel
COMMENTS 6 Comments
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